Karnataka - Bangalore   

Aim is to keep Congress out: Venkaiah

Bangalore: Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader M. Venkaiah Naidu, MP, on Saturday said that Governor Rameshwar Thakur should invite the leader of the BJP Legislature Party B.S. Yediyurappa to form the government. He should do it on the basis of the letter submitted to him by Janata Dal (Secular) Legislature Party leader H.D. Kumaraswamy and State JD(S) president Merajuddin Patel supporting Mr. Yediyurappa.

Speaking to presspersons after the BJP staked its claim to form the government, Mr. Naidu said Mr. Thakur was left with no alternative but to withdraw the proclamation of President’s Rule, paving the way for Mr. Yediyurappa to form the government. Accompanied by BJP general secretary H.N. Ananth Kumar and State BJP president D.V. Sadananda Gowda, he said the BJP agreed to form the government to prevent the Congress from playing its old game of “coming to power through the back door”.

He made it clear that the BJP had declared its intention of going to the polls after the JD(S) refused to support it to form the government. However, it accepted JD(S) support only to prevent the Congress from coming to power.

He said that the BJP and the JD(S) together enjoyed an absolute majority in the Legislative Assembly, and the Governor should not delay allowing the coalition to form the government.

Mr. Naidu said that the Congress was their main rival, and the BJP had seen what it had done earlier. Asked what guarantee there was that the new coalition would survive in view of the recent developments, he said that while the Congress-JD(S) coalition was short lived, the JD(S)-BJP combine completed its 20-month term. One should see the distinction.

Asked about the BJP’s volte-face in accepting the support of the JD(S) against which the BJP had launched a ‘dharma yuddha’, Mr. Naidu said that since the party had got dharma (justice), it withdrew the yuddha (struggle). The re-alliance was ethical in the given situation, he maintained.

Mr. Naidu did not agree with the suggestion that his party was desperate to respond to the JD(S) because it wanted an alliance with a secular party. Claiming that the BJP was the “number one secular party in the country”, he said that it was so even after the Gujarat revelations made by Tehelka in a sting operation.

Asked whether the alliance would continue beyond 20 months and hold good for the Lok Sabha elections, particularly in view of the discussions JD(S) national president H.D. Deve Gowda had with BJP president Rajnath Singh, Mr. Ananth Kumar nodded in approval, but Mr. Naidu said it all depended on the performance of the BJP-JD(S) coalition government.

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